


Remembrance

by ewinfic



Series: Remote [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Death, Heavy Angst, Identity Issues, M/M, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soulmates, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:59:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4424081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinfic/pseuds/ewinfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifth part of the Remote series, where Steve and Bucky are telepathic soulmates:  Bucky's memories have returned, and Nick Fury wants to use them.  Steve and Bucky both must make some hard decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance

_"You know it's time, Rogers. You said yourself his memory has almost completely returned."_

_"Yeah, and it's cost him. You have no idea how much."_

_"So why not put those memories to good use?"_

_"Because it hurts him to remember."_

_"Well, much as I hate to bring up such a delicate subject, because of him it hurts me to walk. It hurts me to_ breathe _. We've all paid quite a lot for him to make it this far alive. This is his chance to make it up to some of the people he's injured over the years."_

_"His work in the field hasn't been enough?"_

_"He volunteered for that. Now I'm asking him for something. And I'm coming to you first because I like to be sensitive to a difficult situation... but it's his choice in the end, and I think we both know what that choice is going to be."_

_"Pierce was right. You're the most ruthless person I've ever met."_

_"If I were that ruthless, I would be utilizing those little episodes of his that you've been trying so carefully to hide from me."_

_"... The only reason you haven't used them is that you don't know how to trigger them on command."_

_"Oh, I think it's pretty easy to figure that out. When you're in danger, he goes boom. Isn't that about the size of it?"_

_"You wouldn't dare."_

_"I would definitely dare, but I'm not going to, because believe it or not, I care about what happens to you. So I leave it alone. But this is something I can't let slide. We need those memories, Steve. Are you going to bring it up to him, or do I need to go to him directly? Your call."_

* * *

Bucky agreed wholeheartedly with Fury's assessment, as Steve had expected.

It was all easier said than done, as Steve had also expected.

The first attempt was made in a secure location in an abandoned warehouse that just so happened to be a room the size of a large closet, equipped with recording devices and lit with flickering neon. Fury assumed that Bucky would be more open if he and Bucky were alone, so it was just them and two chairs.

It turned out to be all wrong. Bucky folded before revealing details of his very first mission, going unresponsive as completely as a blown-out candle. He was in a funk for two days until Natasha came for another one of her special visits. After that experience, Steve asked for her advice and gave a little of his own.

Now the four of them (Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Fury) were sitting around a picnic table in a relatively isolated part of Berwick Park and Waterfowl Preserve, talking quietly and occasionally taking breaks for a quick walk or to watch the swans float lightly by. Fury was intensely grumpy about the entire setup, but it was at least as secure as a building in the middle of the city. Steve had Sam patrolling the perimeter. And in the end, Steve argued, who would expect them to be discussing classified information out _here_?

Fury was still grumpy about it. He started the first session out by saying, "I hope you all realize that I am deathly allergic to being shit on by ducks."

"We'll do our best to shoo them away before they reach pooping proximity," Steve said drily.

"Let's get this over with as quickly as possible before there's a fly-by. Barnes, you were telling me about 1947."

Bucky nodded and swallowed, his face pale but composed. Steve was holding his hand both physically and mentally; all he could feel was calm determination from Bucky. "That was my first mission; a SHIELD operative named Harold Gundridge. They thought it was best to keep me close to home the first time. I wasn't used to the conditioning yet, I kept trying to remember things and feeling sick. And I wasn't used to the arm. I nearly bungled the whole thing."

"Gundridge..." Fury typed the name into his table. "He died of a heart attack before completing his work on an antidote to Hydra's P.A.S.B. virus. It had spread to half of Romania by that time and was killing one in ten people."

"He didn't die of a heart attack. I shot him with a hypo dart full of succinylcholine."

"Wasn't that a little bit subtle for you, considering your... later work?" Fury asked pointedly.

Bucky looked down at his hands. "It was a recommendation from Zola. His methods were always underhanded, and he knew I wasn't good with my arm yet. It wasn't until I had more experience that I found that simpler was better."

"Go on."

"I hit Gundridge in broad daylight on a crowded street, which was a good setup, but it wasn't good for the arm. People kept brushing past me and feeling the metal. They were staring. It made me dizzy, and the sunlight did, too. I barely managed the hit and then once he was on the ground I barely made it away. Vomited and passed out in a nearby alley and was picked up by Hydra and..."

"And?"

"... and re... re-conditioned."

Steve felt a wave of revulsion pass over and through him, and couldn't be sure whether it was Bucky's emotion or his own. Probably a mixture of both. Just the word 're-conditioned' sounded like some kind of politicized torture.

"Which involved what?" Fury asked, intently. Bucky was silent, his eyes far away. Steve shifted in his seat.

Natasha said, sharply, "Bucky."

Bucky's head snapped up, an obedient reflex. "Re-conditioning. A series of injections to make me stronger and tougher, and mental re-programming. It was my first wipe."

"And what, pray tell, is a wipe?" Fury asked.

"They remove access to all memories and install more desirable ones."

"Like what?"

"Killing. Killing methods, fight training, technology, and Hydra loyalty. Mostly killing, though. One of the hardest things..." He stopped, glancing at Steve, and Steve immediately understood. _Fury isn't interested in my feelings._

"What was one of the hardest things?" Natasha asked, softly.

_Fury may not be interested, but Natasha is and I am. Say on._

"One of the hardest things about remembering all this is that I have to remember... hundreds of missions, not just dozens. Hundreds of kills. I don't know how Hydra managed to record memories, but they had some kind of a database where they had collected the memories of every Hydra operative who ever killed somebody for more than twenty years. Back then it was all vacuum tubes and punch cards, thousands of them. I don't just remember the things I did. I remember almost every assassination that Hydra ever committed in the last century."

Fury stared at him. "Name me a few."

"Carl Jenkiss, 1922, gut-shot. Pierre Groudeaux, 1923, cyanide. Nathan Moore, 1936, train wreck with over a hundred other casualties..."

Fury waved his hands. "Stop. 1922? That pre-dates Hydra by almost two decades."

"That was the organization that became Hydra. At the time they called themselves Die Schlange. The Snake. But even before that, Hydra existed... back to ancient Egypt, even. Thank God they didn't have the memory recording technology until the 20s."

"In the 1920s, Hydra could record memories from the human mind?"

Bucky smiled. It was the bleakest expression Steve had ever seen. "Oh my but weren't they impressive? What they couldn't record, they gave to me in history. I couldn't tell you everything I learned. It would take a year."

"I have a year." Fury tapped the table with his fingertips for a moment. "Barnes, I have to say, I'm feeling more and more reluctant to send you out in the field. You are too valuable as a living data archive."

Bucky turned pale. Steve quickly said, "He's just as valuable as a field agent."

"Not... quite."

Natasha said, "Fury is right. You have information that we can't get access to any other way. Just hearing that Hydra pre-dates World War II changes almost everything we knew about them." She gave Bucky a sympathetic look. "Bucky, I'm sorry, but you can't be risked."

Steve felt a wave of sudden and intense fear from Bucky. Not just fear; terror and rage. But below that, a despairing, resigned, deadened voice said, _They're right._

_Bucky, you don't have to do this._

_All I have to do is share what I know... then I can be put back in the field, right?_

_You said yourself that would take a year!_

_What's a year, more or less?_ Bucky glanced at Steve and gave him a sick smile. "Lock me in a safe and throw away the key."

"I'm not going to let that happen," Steve said, firmly. He glared at Fury. "I'm wondering how many times I'm going to have to tell you that Bucky is not your tool. He is a volunteer."

"Oh, it's still his decision," Fury said tightly. "I'm just putting in my fervent recommendation that he help us in the most effective way. And if that means we spend the next year visiting the waterfowl, I'm willing to endure that to close the book on some hundreds of unsolved murder cases."

Steve tried to quell his anger; it felt too much like desperation. "You're not querying some computer, you're asking this of a human being. To sit and... spit out names and dates like a machine, until you're done recording them. Has it occurred to you that we need him with us when we go out?"

"Start taking Wilson."

"Stark's been using him."

"But Stark doesn't really _need_ him. Stark has his own resources. You need a third party member, so requisition the person best suited to the task, and let me decide how best to protect our currently most valuable human resource." Nick met Steve's eyes implacably.

The facts were all against Bucky's ever being let out of the house again. Steve tried to think of some way around it.

_Steve..._

Steve suddenly saw himself from the outside; willing to allow Bucky to endanger himself, in spite of his own feelings, in spite of how it would destroy him if Bucky were killed. Just because Bucky needed to be out there. Just because Steve was out there. Because of _fairness_. And Steve realized that this was Bucky's viewpoint... and he felt a wave of love and gratitude so intense that he had to close his eyes for a moment. Bucky knew what it cost Steve to put himself at risk. And Steve knew what it cost Bucky to know Steve was in danger, too. It was an almost impossibly loving act, what they did every time they went on a mission together... _I know you would rather die than be useless. So do what you have to do, and if it comes down to that, I'll die beside you._ He felt Bucky take his hand.

_Bucky, this is about more than just letting you do what you want because I love you. This is about survival. You will not survive being grounded; I can feel that._

_This is more important than I am._

_NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU ARE._ Steve realized his face was red with rage, and he opened his eyes, glaring around at everybody at the table, even Bucky. He let go of Bucky's hand and left the table, stalking off down one of the nearby nature trails.

He walked through the woods, which were so quiet. Quieter than life ever was, absent the noise of cars and even planes. All he could hear was the wind, the occasional voices of birds, the trickling of water as he crossed over and back over the shoals that dropped away below his feet on the wooden planks of makeshift bridges.

He sensed Bucky closing in on him. Steve stopped and left the trail, heading for the water. He sat down at the water's edge.

He felt that even if it were pitch black night, even if they weren't linked, he would still be able to track Bucky's exact location by some kind of instinct or reflex. His hands and feet felt Bucky looking for him. He could feel Bucky in his belly and his chest; Bucky ached all through his heart and coursed across the surface of his skin. His cock remembered Bucky's mouth. Every inch and atom of Steve had been subtly but profoundly imprinted. Steve closed his eyes, his breath quickening.

Hands landed lightly on his shoulders, one soft, one hard. No touch in the world had that same eternal dichotomy.

_I love you so much that it almost breaks me in pieces._

_... Likewise._ Steve bowed his head. He felt Bucky crouch behind him, pressing against his back. The warmth of lips brushed the back of his neck.

_What are we going to do, Buck?_

_What we do every day, Steve. Save the world._

_Is that what we do?_

_It's what you do. It's what I do. Both of us for the same reason: because of you. Because you are who you are._

_All I ever wanted was to do the right thing._

_So do the right thing._ Bucky sat down beside Steve, rubbing his fingertips back and forth across the nape of Steve's neck.

"Bucky... when doing the right thing hurts you, I don't know what to do."

"Haven't you realized yet that doing the right thing usually hurts somebody? If you're lucky, it's somebody bad that gets hurt. If you're not..."

"... then it's the one you love most in the world." Steve turned and gently pressed his face against Bucky's shoulder. When he lifted back up, he saw to his surprise that he had left two wet spots. He was crying. He looked at Bucky, and saw tears in his eyes as well.

"Steve, I gotta be honest. I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I'm scared as hell." He chuckled. "You know, I was never as brave as you were."

"There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity."

"Don't do that. You know what I'm talking about."

Steve nodded. "I know." Countless fights picked with guys who were bigger than he was. Countless times being saved by Bucky. Would he have ever been so brave if he hadn't known the link would bring Bucky running?

_You would have. I know you would._

_So take all my courage for your own and use it._ Steve looked deep into Bucky's eyes and willed his own faith and hope into Bucky's mind.

Bucky pulled him close and pressed their foreheads together. They breathed each others' breath for a moment, and then kissed. The contact turned desperate in seconds, heat rising, wanting... Bucky pulled away, clearing his throat. "Probably not a good idea right now."

"Bucky, maybe there's a way I can help. I can sit with you while you remember. Every time."

"Ground yourself, too?" A faint flicker of hope lifted Bucky's eyes, but his voice was doubting. "Fury needs you to shut down the last pieces of Hydra."

"Well, he can either have both of us do that, or have both of us here, helping him track all those killings. It's up to him which is more important, but we're not splitting up."

"I don't need a wet nurse to remember the things I've done wrong."

"Don't be an ass. I could..."

"Steve, no."

"But--"

"No. You have a job. I have a job. This is real simple."

Steve paused. "How the hell are we going to do this?"

"I'll tell you how." Bucky took both of Steve's hands. "We stay linked. Harder than ever. I don't want you shutting me out when you're in the field just because you think you're doing something that will hurt me, not anymore. Bring me all the way in. And I... I." He took a deep breath. "I won't hide anything from you either. I'll tell you everything I know, just like Fury, and then you... you can decide... if I... if we..."

"Shut up. There's no decision to be made. You telling me everything wouldn't change anything."

"You don't know that," Bucky said quietly.

"Let me prove it to you."

"Fine. We'll do it tonight."

They helped each other up, and wearily went to go tell Fury that he had won.

That night, Steve hesitantly suggested sex before they started transferring any memories, but it proved impossible. They were both too anxious, and Bucky seemed strangely self-conscious. He didn't even want to be completely naked, so they eventually rested next to each other in their underwear, hands loosely linked.

"I'm ready," Steve whispered.

"Steve, some of the things I'm about to show you, they might..."

"Don't start with that. Nothing you can possibly show me could change how I feel about you."

"... Okay." Bucky took a deep breath. "Then let's start."

They both closed their eyes.

Steve felt the gentle touch of Bucky's mind, and then a trickle of memory began. It was Bucky, loading a gun, firing and reloading, killing a caged group of soldiers. It wasn't pleasant to watch, but Steve forced himself to, even noting the terrified looks on the faces of the men and women being shot... but that was just the starting round. Once Bucky felt Steve's presence fully in the memory, he opened the floodgates.

What hit Steve's mind was something like the roaring onrush of a tsunami, a giant wave of death, so intense that he couldn't move while it thrummed its way entirely through his mind, sweeping away his former consciousness and finding every nook and cranny of selfhood and washing it away. Steve wasn't there, not anymore. Neither was Bucky. There was only the Soldier, the cold remote face of the killing tool that Hydra had created.

And yet...

There was Bucky, shooting a man in the forehead as he begged for his life. There was Bucky, shooting heads of state. There was Bucky, sniper-firing at a man at a dinner party, splattering brains all over the clothing of his guests. There was Bucky, slicing throats, cutting hamstrings, throwing grenades. It was him, and yet it wasn't.

Murder upon murder upon murder, assassination, homicide, after a while the words simply ceased to mean anything and the epic history of death, both by Bucky's hands and the hands of others, slowly became all that there was to think and feel and be. There was no such thing as life, except that which had to be exterminated. Blood and entrails were everywhere, everywhere were the filmy eyes of corpses, everywhere were stiff reticulations of burst blood vessels, hands clawing for help or mercy. Everywhere was bottomless terror and endless rage.

There was Bucky, stabbing a senator in the lung. And when his two children, three and five years old, woke and found them there... Bucky did not hesitate. He sliced both of their throats wide open, and walked calmly out of the house covered in their blood, still sticky and warm on his hands.

It was too much, it was beyond Steve's capability. His mind began to shut down. He could distantly feel his body wracked with deep shudders, trying desperately to get away from whatever it was that was distressing him so deeply. And a tiny voice was saying, _No. That isn't Bucky. That isn't who Bucky is._

Another voice (Bucky's voice?) answered, saying, _Yes, it is._

_It can't be._

_It can. Watch, and know._ And the images flowed on and on and on, until Steve realized that they pre-dated Bucky and were now the killings of others. But Bucky had experienced them as himself, and so Steve did now. Now, it was more than just assassination. There were scenes of torture, of mass exterminations, of families torn apart in front of each other. An endless stream of faces caught in their last horrifying moment linked Steve's mind to each killing.

And a cold, quiet voice said, _This is me, as well. This is also who I am._

_... Bucky?_

One last vague memory, scattered and badly recorded but there, of a man being stabbed in the face with a bayonet. And then there was a sudden quiet darkness, deep inside of Steve's mind. He sensed that he had fled here, deep inside of himself to get away from the apocalypse of memory. But the Soldier had followed him here, and was with him now.

_There's something you need to know._

_Okay. I'm listening._

_I am not a sickness. I am not an episode. I am Bucky. A solid, real part of him. A part that is not going to go away. A part that he tries to hide from you. But I am real, and I am him, as well. Listen to me closely. I did these things, and I did them willingly._

_You were forced to do them._

_Perhaps at first. Then, it was survival pure and simple. Which means I traded their lives for my own._

_No, Buck..._

_Listen to me. Listen. I became what I am. I am a gun, an arm, an eye, a mouth, a mind. I am set upon my mission, and my mission is always, always to kill. And I always, always succeed. That is what and who I am._

Steve felt the impossible happening; he felt himself recoiling from Bucky, drawing away, wanting to never experience the inside of his mind again. Wanting to pretend that none of this happened.

And Steve stopped it, and decided to do something else instead.

_Do you remember me calling for you, when you were frozen and in the dark?_

_Yes. I remember._

_I told you that I loved you._

_It was the lighter half of Bucky that you said that to._

_No, it wasn't. It was you. When I was calling out to you, crying for you, wishing for you, you were what you are right now... and you were still Bucky, and I said, I love you. I love you. Please come back to me. Don't destroy yourself. I love you._

_I don't understand._

_Then try to feel this._

Steve opened his eyes. It felt like emerging from a deep, dark well and coming out into the sunlight, blinking and blinded by it; his eyes took time to focus, and when they did, they focused upon another pair of eyes looking back at him. Bucky's eyes, cold and lifeless, all of the feeling extinguished from them.

Steve was lying in bed with the Winter Soldier.

And he reached for him, and kissed the cold, hard lips, and whispered against them, "Make love to me."

"I can't do that. I don't love." The voice was as remote as a star.

"Then pretend. I know you can do that."

It was like being seduced by a snake; something about the Soldier was sinuous and insidious in a way that Bucky was not... but then, this was also Bucky. Steve felt like he was being embraced by darkness incarnate. The touch began impersonally, roving his body in a businesslike manner, but then a hunger seemed to fill the Soldier and his kisses became harder. Steve trembled; the way he was being handled now was utterly and arrogantly possessive in a way that even Bucky had never been. But the touches were skilled, too, and why not? Who could possibly know the human body better, its pleasures and its pains, than the Soldier? So skilled that Steve, breathing hard, softened into utter pliancy beneath that touch. He surrendered to it utterly. He was the Soldier's newest victim, being killed by a strange new method.

"I love you," he whispered, and he felt the body of the Soldier pause in confusion, and then continue to darkly manipulate him. He whispered it again. "I love you," and put the full force of his meaning behind it. _You, the killer. You, the psychotic monster. You, I love. It's my choice and I choose to love you._

_If you met me on the battlefield, you would kill me._

_Yes, that is true. And it changes nothing._

What they were doing felt like struggle and victory and surrender. It was enough like a conquering blow that the Soldier could embrace the act, could embrace Steve and hold him close in the way that only a lover or an assassin could do.

When he entered Steve, they both shuddered deeply. And the Soldier began to move.

_I love you._

_Stop..._

_I love you._

_No._

_I love you._

_I can't..._

The Soldier's breath was sharp and heavy against Steve's ear, his thoughts dark and desperate and hungry, and Steve gave himself over and wrapped his arms and legs around the body of his lover and kissed his mouth, their tongues twining ferociously as they moved faster and harder, shaking the bed. He felt the full force of his love bursting from every pore and washing over the Soldier with as full a roar as that ocean rush of death had covered him earlier. But this was even more drenching, even higher a wave. The Soldier threw his head back and cried out, and with a _SLAM_ like the pounding of the wave against the helpless sand below, Steve felt the two halves of Bucky join into a whole.

_I understand now, what it means to accept you as you are. And I do._

_Steve..._ "Steve!" Bucky's face twisted, dark and light and agonized.

But Steve couldn't respond with anything more than his body, because the Soldier had finally won his due, and they were both shoved into a blinding climax that seemed to thrum through them and shiver the air around their bodies, lighting their skin on fire. Steve couldn't breathe, his lungs couldn't pump hard enough, and he wondered distantly whether he was dying.

They didn't die. Instead, they woke up.

Tangled deeply into each other, streaming sweat and trembling, Bucky's teeth on Steve's shoulder as his cock slowly began to soften inside of Steve. Steve caught a single gasping breath, and was able to breathe again. Each breath felt like a gift, like something that wasn't guaranteed, something that could never be exactly repeated; each breath had to be reinvented.

Bucky released his bite on Steve's shoulder and lifted up, licking his lips and breathing hard, his eyes wide and shining. They stared at each other. Slowly Bucky lifted his metal hand and gently, so gently, wiped a tear from Steve's cheek.

Words were nonsensical. So was thought. They kissed again instead. Steve could feel their link ringing between them like a bell choir.

Biology and reality mercifully kicked in and the position became impossible, and Bucky pulled out and collapsed beside Steve, the sweat cooling on their bodies as they tried to gather their breath. Words and thought began to return.

Bucky looked at Steve, wonderingly. "I love you."

Steve said, "There were so many of them, Buck. So many." And he felt something inside of himself crumple; he began to cry with the weight of everything that Bucky and Hydra had done.

Bucky, the Soldier, pulled Steve close and held him and comforted him.


End file.
